1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a transporting vehicle system that causes a transporting vehicle to travel along a predetermined travelling route, and a method of controlling the transporting vehicle.
2. Description of the Related Art
There is a transporting vehicle system for causing an unmanned transporting vehicle to automatically travel under a computer control along a travelling route that includes a plurality of one-way circulating routes preinstalled on, for example, a ceiling or a floor. In such a transporting vehicle system, for example, when a fault occurs in the transporting vehicle, other transporting vehicles are not able to travel in a certain zone of the travelling route including the position where the transporting vehicle is stopped. Additionally, when a track forming the travelling route is under construction, or the like, the transporting vehicle is unable to travel in a certain zone of the travelling route that is under construction.
Thus, if a situation occurs where there is a position that the transporting vehicle cannot travel, the conventional transporting vehicle system sets a certain zone of the travelling route including the aforementioned position as a prohibited travel zone. When selecting a route to the prescribed station, the transporting vehicle system selects such a route that the transporting vehicle does not travel the prohibited travel zone. (Refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 11-85280, for example.)
However, the prohibited travel zone could have been set on the downstream side of the prescribed station. If there is no branch point between the prescribed station and the prohibited travel zone, the transporting vehicle has nowhere to go resulting in the transporting vehicle being unable to travel after the transporting vehicle arrives at the prescribed station. In this regard, if the number of transporting vehicles getting caught in a so-called dead end increases, the transporting efficiency of the entire transporting vehicle system decreases.